Writtenwyrdd : Life, as we know it

According to an article today in Science Daily, there's a new category of planetary bodies besides stars and planets: There's the brown dwarf. It's basically an aborted star. Neither fish nor fowl, it is created when "a system consisting of three embryonic stars disintegrates due to the mutual attraction of masses, and the lightest object is catapulted out of the system." Voila, a brown dwarf. UPDATE: To clarify as per Charles' comment, the brown dwarf has been recognized for a long time; but this article describes how it's now in it's very own classification as a celestial body. There isn't a new name for it, however. The three celestial bodies are star, planet and brown dwarf.

This consideration of new classifications (something we humans excel at) made me wonder at the classification of life. What is alive? What is in-between?

Recent discussions about biologically created artificial intelligence would blur the line between alive and not very well, I'd think. Likewise, I believe that we humans will and do have an insistence that intelligence in particular and life in general is something we would recognize if we saw it. (We can reference the Chief Justice's "I know it when I see it" definition of pornography once again.)

Because our human bias is xenophobic. We seem to automatically respond with bias against opening up definitions of intelligence with the sense that sharing will endanger us, will risk our positions as dominant. We respond like schoolyard bullies and we narrow any definitions of intelligence to the point of absurdia to rule out, for example, gorillas and dolphins from the pool of intelligence, whether rightly or wrongly I cannot say. But we do this thing consistently. We've even done it for other races of mankind and for gender, using "they aren't really inteligent" or "women don't have souls" arguments to justify inhumane behavior against other groups of people.

So how does this apply to speculative fiction?
A couple of thoughts come to mind. Firstly, what if intelligence arrived on our doorstep in a form which we would be biased against--like the Messiah in the guise of a slimy polyp-hexacephalopod from Antares IV? Repulsive in appearance, he would be so offputting the first human to see this guy would likely blast him with a shotgun on general principle. Or, conversely, what if something dangerous arrived in an innocuous package like a cute and fuzzy alien baby? Both of these involve ironic turns of the expected upon its head. (Both are also probably too easy an answer.) But one could create a story that utilizes the confusion as an advantage.

Then there is the example that Frank Herbert used in Whipping Star, where he has stars that are intelligent beings. And they are being tortured. Not everyone recognizes the stars' rights as sentient beings, you see. This book is one of my old favs because of the understated discussion about what is intelligence, what are a being's natural rights, and a discussion on how badly mankind is capable of behaving to what we perceive as the "evil other." (NOTE: I've discussed the evil other syndrome before. But to refresh your memory, it's a human tendency to brand anything unfamiliar as evil until proven otherwise. Humans take things with salt.)

Karen Traviss also discusses this issue in an overt theme in her Wes'harr series, which I highly recommend just because they are fantastic science fiction. In her stories, however, all life has equal rights and humans conflict with an alien race that takes it upon themselves to represent the voiceless lives disrupted by abusive cohabitants of their planets.

And about me again.
So there's today's ramble. I'm actually trying to write today, although I'm not making much headway. I started a story and dropped the beginning at EE's blog to see if it would help me figure out the plot. I'm still wallowing in options...

And on top of all the house fixing up bother, the just-cleaned carpet in my bedroom began to smell last night. Rather like cat piss, actually. I am going to be driving myself crazy dealing with that. Worse, it didn't smell before!